


roma downey wannabe

by fleurmatisse



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Alternate Universe, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, M/M, References to Depression, a bit of grief, angel lore got thrown right out the window, no hunting au, some profound accidental bonding
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-19
Updated: 2018-03-12
Packaged: 2019-03-21 11:58:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 4,605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13740396
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fleurmatisse/pseuds/fleurmatisse
Summary: When Dean stops for a stranded motorist on his way to Bobby’s, he half-expects the guy to be a serial killer. Instead he winds up with a guardian angel. It’s the stupidest fairytale bullshit he’s ever heard.





	1. night one

**Author's Note:**

> **edit: as of 1/10/19 this is officially an abandoned work** my apologies to anyone who was waiting for it to continue
> 
> disclaimer: this is a WIP, being posted as it's written.  
> this started as a Touched By An Angel AU (hence the title) and now it's...whatever this is. enjoy.

From the kitchen Dean and Bobby watch Castiel peruse the books Bobby’s got stacked all over the den. Bobby watches with suspicion; Dean watches with defeat.

“And you’re sure he’s not just crazy,” Bobby says for the fourth time. Dean sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. As he’s said three other times, Castiel is only crazy if they’re all crazy. 

“Bobby, I am too tired to go over it again,” he says.  They can all see the mark on Dean’s arm, Dean definitely felt something weird on that highway, and Castiel milling around is proof that it’s not just Dean hallucinating. Whether Dean likes it or not, all signs point to Castiel telling the truth: Dean’s got himself a guardian angel. “Can we just deal with it in the morning?”

“It is the damn morning,” Bobby grumbles, but it’s more to remind Dean that he was woken up for all  _this_  than to say no. He uncrosses his arms to gesture to the hall. “The couch is yours. You know where blankets are.” To Castiel he says, “I got a lotta guns and I ain’t afraid to use ‘em, so you best be staying down here.”

Castiel merely glances up with raised eyebrows and then turns to the mantle, inspecting the pictures on display. Bobby shakes his head but heads upstairs. Dean sticks by the counter for another minute until Castiel picks up one of the frames, him and Sam when they were little out in the yard brandishing sticks at each other like rifles. He crosses the room to snatch it out of Castiel’s hand, placing it back on the mantle face down and positioning himself between the pictures and Castiel.

“You have a brother,” Castiel says, his attention zeroing in on Dean, who feels it like a smack to the face. Castiel didn’t move when Dean invaded his space so they’re barely a foot apart.

“That’s none of your business,” Dean says. He doesn’t let himself fidget. “You have to sleep on the floor.”

“I don’t sleep,” Castiel says. Dean waits for the joke. Castiel doesn’t even blink.

“Whatever,” he says, stepping to the side to get some breathing room. “Just don’t touch anything. And Bobby wasn’t kidding about the guns.”

“I believe him,” Castiel says, unbothered. Dean leaves the room.


	2. boundaries and breakfast food

Dean becomes aware of his surroundings in increments. The couch he’s lying on. The pillow under his head. The light dancing through the window. He stretches his back, eyes still shut, and finds that it doesn’t hurt like it usually does after a night on Bobby’s couch. His head isn’t cloudy either, or screaming for coffee. He actually feels...well-rested. 

His eyes snap open.

Untangling his legs from the blanket, he absently gauges it to be somewhere in the afternoon, which only adds to his urgency.  _ Something’s wrong _ , his brain keeps reminding him.  _ Something’s wrong, something’s wrong, something’s wrong _ . 

Finally free, he stalks to the doorway and looks down the hall, around the kitchen, but he doesn’t see Castiel anywhere. In socked feet he goes out the back door aiming for Bobby’s workshop and winds up in the middle of the salvage yard looking at Castiel, who’s glancing from a paper in his hand to the car on top of one of the stacks with a deep frown.

“Hello, Dean,” Castiel says. He turns to Dean and holds out the paper so he can see it. “Is this what your uncle is looking for?”

Dean freezes, anger paused in confusion, and almost checks the paper before he catches himself. 

“What the hell did you do to me?” he demands. Castiel  _ looks _ at him, giving Dean the unpleasant feeling of being studied like a lab rat. 

“You were having a nightmare,” Castiel says. “I stopped it and eased you into a deeper sleep.”

Dean flounders—torn between  _ boundary issues _ ,  _ what does THAT mean _ , and a straight up  _ what the FUCK _ —and winds up with the very powerful, “Don’t do that!”

The lab rat feeling intensifies as Castiel tilts his head. 

“Why?” he asks, and god help Dean he seems genuinely curious.

“Because!” Dean says. “It’s creepy, and weird, and a violation of privacy!”

“So I should ignore your distress,” Castiel says slowly, “even if I can alleviate it.”

“Yes!” 

Castiel looks at him some more before he nods. “I don’t understand why you would want to suffer, but I will respect your wishes.”

With that, he turns back to the cars, leaving Dean to stare at him in stunned silence. He didn’t think it would be that easy. And now that he’s not focused on yelling at Castiel, he’s very aware of the stray chunks of gravel biting into his feet. He kicks the gravel away and cranes his neck to try and read the note in Castiel’s hand.

“What are you looking for?” he asks after a minute. Castiel holds out the paper again, and this time Dean takes it. Bobby’s chicken scratch runs in a whole list of things, the first being a gas cap from a 1994 Lexus, and goes on to request extraneous pieces from about twelve other cars. Dean looks at the car, if it can be called that anymore with just a squashed frame and enough of a hood to be recognizable. “That’s the right model, but I doubt there’s a gas cap.”

Castiel takes back the list with pursed lips, walking away from Dean to move on to the next stack. Dean watches him inspect each car before continuing down the row, and then he actually goes to Bobby’s workshop this time to find Bobby sitting with his feet up reading one of his weird mythology books. Dean stands in the doorway.

“You don’t actually need any of those parts, do you?” he asks, less accusing and more  _ you know he knows nothing about cars, right? _

“You never know what you’ll need in the future,” Bobby says. Dean smiles. Bobby used to do the exact same thing with him and Sam when they were being particularly obnoxious. 

“I kind of doubt Castiel was being too loud for you to concentrate,” Dean says.

“He stares,” Bobby replies, giving Dean a withering look. “At least now it’s being put to good use.”

Dean laughs. “Alright, well, I’m gonna go get breakfast while he’s occupied. You need anything in town?”

“I don’t have any beer,” Bobby says. Dean nods, tapping the doorway with a knuckle on his way out. All he has to do now is get back to the house and in his car without Castiel noticing. 

Turns out he didn’t even have to worry about it. He gets through the house, collecting his shoes, his jacket with his wallet and keys, and his phone off the charger in the kitchen, and gets out of the driveway without seeing Castiel once. 

Despite it being nearly 3 PM, he’s still craving breakfast like there’s no tomorrow. He bypasses the Denny’s, still not able to get himself to step inside one, and goes for McDonald’s. It’s probably for the best anyway; he hasn’t eaten in almost 2 days so the amount of food he orders would get a comment basically anywhere but a Mickey D’s. While he waits for his number to be called, he pulls out his phone, ignoring the old messages he still hasn’t opened, and opens his thread with Sam. He didn’t tell him he was even going to Bobby’s, so to open with  _ Hey, I made it to SD _ would be a little out of place. He considers  _ You’re the religious one so why did I get the creepy angel? _ but that’s even worse. Their whole  _ keep in touch _ deal was a whole lot easier in theory than in practice.

His number gets called before he types a single letter, so he tells himself he’ll text Sam after he eats, before he goes back to Bobby’s. He is not leaving this McDonald’s until he talks to his brother. With that promise to himself, he grabs the piled up tray of food and sits out of view of the counter to eat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm going for regular updates Mondays and bonus Thursday/Friday if i'm extra productive.  
> i'm also on tumblr @ winkingwinchesters if u want updates on updates/probably some snippets/latest season spoilers


	3. the great light bulb massacre

“So you’re telling me,” Sam says, “that this guy is a real-deal angel? You actually  _ believe _ he’s an angel.”

Dean holds back a sigh. He had texted Sam the gist of what happened the night before: he saw a truck stopped on the side of the road, decided to be a good citizen and help the driver, and came out of it with a handprint burned on his arm and Castiel telling him how there are angels walking the earth, finding the souls they were destined to protect. He did leave out the part about why he was going to Bobby’s in the first place, but that’s hardly anything compared to the angel aspect. Sam had called him as soon as he read it, so now Dean is just casually talking angels in a booth at McDonald’s.

“Yes, Sam, that is what I’m telling you.”

Said handprint makes itself known with a gentle burn, like a localized sunburn catching against his sleeve, which, from what Castiel said about being a being of light, makes sense. Dean grabs his phone with his left hand so his right can press down on the mark while Sam is silent on the other line.

“You still with me?” Dean asks after a minute.

“Yeah, I just,” Sam says. He inhales loud enough for Dean to catch it, collecting himself. Dean can picture him shaking his head. “It’s just—strange.”

“Yeah, tell me about it,” Dean says. The burning in his arm flares up to  _ an inch from an open flame _ . He moves his hand away and it ratchets up to  _ in a goddamn open flame _ . A grunt of pain makes it past his teeth as he clamps his hand back down.

“What?” Sam says immediately. Dean lets out a slow breath, willing his arm to calm the fuck down. “What’s going on?”

The burning calms enough for Dean to say, “I’ll call you back,” and hang up before Sam can argue. Moving his arm doesn’t make it hurt any more or less, so he’s able to find Bobby’s main number and hit call while the rest of him is tensed up. 

It feels like it rings forever before Bobby’s harassed voice says, “Yeah?”

“Bobby—”

“Dean,” Bobby interrupts, hardly softening. “You need to get back here.”

“What? Why?” Dean asks. He forces himself to get up, levering himself upright with the table. He feels a distant guilt for leaving his tray of trash on the table. 

“Your new angel friend is wrecking my house,” Bobby says. Glass shatters in the background; Bobby’s voice grows distant as he says, “Enough with the light bulbs!”

“I’m on my way,” Dean says. He makes it out the door, digging in his pocket for his keys. ‘What’s going on? What is he doing?”

“Right now, he’s sitting on the floor popping all my damn light bulbs.”

Dean pauses as he unlocks his car. “What?”

“Just get back here,” Bobby says, and hangs up. Dean looks at his phone for a second then shakes his hand and shoves it in his pocket as he opens the car door. Hanging up suddenly must be a family trait. 

His arm hurts less the closer he gets to Bobby’s, which suggests an implication he definitely does not like. By the time he’s pulling into the driveway, it’s back down to irritating sunburn, and it disappears completely when he opens in the front door and sees Castiel on his knees in the hall surrounded by broken glass. 

“What the actual fuck,” Dean says. His boots crunch over the floor as he steps inside, shutting the door and shutting out most of the light. Castiel looks up, scans him up and down, and sags, one hand coming up to rub his forehead before it falls in his lap. The other hand goes palm down in the glass, seemingly holding him up. “Dude!”

Castiel looks at him again, brow furrowed. Dean gestures at the hand on the floor, unable to find another way to say  _ what the actual fuck _ , and Castiel picks it up and blinks at the blooms of blood without much of an expression. 

“Oh,” he says. He looks to Dean, who looks to the ceiling, because seriously? This is the guy he’s stuck with? But he goes over to Castiel anyway, crouches down next to him and grabs his wrist so he can inspect the damage. Most of the glass is sticking out of his palm, big enough to pluck out.

“It’s not that bad,” he says after a moment, standing and bringing Castiel with him. He keeps a hold on Castiel’s arm and leads him to the bathroom, turning on the faucet. “Keep your hand under there. I’ll be right back.”

Dean picks his way down the hall, avoiding as much glass as he can on the way to the kitchen. The first aid kit is in the cabinet to the far left of the sink. When he turns around Bobby is in the doorway, staring him down like he’s trying to figure out what the hell’s going through his head. It’s not a look Dean is unfamiliar with.

“What?” he says, only a little defensive. 

Bobby shakes his head and lets up on the stare. “Nothing. You cut yourself?”

“No, I’m fine,” Dean says. He hesitates before gesturing to the hall with the first aid kit. “Cas got some glass in his hand.”

Bobby lifts his chin to squint at him. “Right. Well when you’re done with that, you can help pick up the rest of the glass.”

“Already planning on it,” Dean says. Bobby nods but doesn’t leave. Dean points to the hallway. “I’m just gonna—”

He escapes Bobby’s presence, wondering what the hell he did that garnered that response, and returns to the bathroom to find Castiel placing a piece of glass on the edge of the sink. There’s a whole row of little shards there already. Castiel notices Dean and shoves his hand back under the water. Dean almost laughs.

“Did you get all of it?” he asks instead. 

“I think so,” Castiel says. Dean puts the first aid kit down on the side of the sink, then waves Cas out of the way so he can get an older towel out from under the sink. He holds out a hand, and Castiel places his hand in Dean’s palm without hesitation. Dean tilts his hand in the light, looking for anything he might’ve missed, but he doesn’t find any more glass. He drops his hand and gives him the towel, stepping back now that his knee-jerk wound patching instinct is unnecessary. 

“You’re good,” he says, only glancing at Castiel’s reflection before he grabs the first aid kit and digs around for the disinfectant spray. He finds it under the gauze packets, turning back to Castiel only to see him clench his hand to a fist and open it again a few seconds later with no wounds. “Okay, that is freaky. You have super-healing?”

“I am able to heal minor injuries completely, and more severe wounds will heal faster than a human,” Castiel says. He’s put all his focus into drying his hands, not looking at Dean as he speaks. “I can also heal humans more easily than myself. If someone were to stab you, for instance, I would be able to heal the wound instantly.”

“Right,” Dean says, staring at the side of Castiel’s face. “Good to know.”

Castiel finishes drying his hands, looking up presumably to find a place for the towel. Dean forces himself to move.

“You can leave it on the sink,” he says, reaching past Castiel to grab a tissue to push the bits of glass into the trash. “Since your hand is fine now, you get to sweep up all the glass. Do angels know what brooms are?”

Castiel doesn’t react other than a  _ yes _ , so Dean says, “Cool,” and leads him back out of the bathroom. He tells Castiel where the broom and dustpan are as he replaces the first aid kit, and watches him get to work sweeping in the hall. There’s something weird about him, some extra stiffness to the way he moves. 

Dean starts picking up knocked over books from the den, which looks to be the ground zero of whatever happened with Castiel. He roughly knows where things go; Bobby keeps his books in organized chaos, and a lot of that has been the same since Dean was seven. He smoothes some pages where books fell face first, replaces bookmarks, and makes sure gives Castiel a little time before he returns to the hall and says, “What happened while I was gone?”

Castiel pauses his sweeping for a second, already getting everything into one neat pile to be pushed in the dustpan. “I didn’t know where you were.”

“So you trashed the place?” Dean asks.

“Not on purpose,” Castiel says. He finishes making the pile and grabs the dustpan. Dean doesn’t think he’s going to explain any further, but then Castiel stops what he’s doing altogether to look at him, hands clenched on the broom and dustpan. “You are the first human I’ve been led to protect. The concern for your well being was...slightly overwhelming.”

“So what you’re saying is, you panicked,” Dean says, stowing away the fact that Cas is a rookie. 

Castiel doesn’t look happy to concede the point. “Slightly.”

“And somehow that equals tornado?”

“In trying to find you, I may have disrupted the energy in the house,” Castiel says. “I believe it was more comparable to an earthquake.”

Dean nods like he understands what Castiel means by  _ disrupted the energy _ . Between the healing and the burning arm, he’s had about enough angelic bullshit for one day. Which reminds him.

“Does that mean you have to be around me all the time or my arm is gonna feel like it’s on fire again?” he asks. Castiel frowns. 

“The mark hurt you?” he says.

“Yeah, it kind of felt like somebody took a blowtorch to it,” Dean says. He doesn’t like the way Castiel’s expression shifts, from confused to a flicker of something that’s smoothed out of sight before Dean can figure it out.

“It won’t happen again,” Castiel assures him. 

“Okay,” Dean says, not sure what else he should say. “Good.”

Castiel seems to be done with the serious conversation as he crouches to collect the pile of glass. As he straightens up, he says, “Do you need help with the other room?”

“I got it,” Dean says. “It’s better if you don’t mess up Bobby’s system.”

“Then I will go back to the yard.”

Dean stays in place, eyes tracking Castiel as he finds the trash can in the kitchen. Something like sympathy gets Dean to say, “Bobby doesn’t actually need those parts. You don’t have to keep looking for them.”

“I know,” Castiel replies. He returns the broom and dustpan to their proper place before he looks at Dean again. Dean looks back, waiting for him to say whatever’s making him make that very serious, yet still slightly annoyed face. “If you leave again—”

“I’ll let you know,” Dean interrupts. “Wouldn’t want a repeat performance.”

Castiel stares a few seconds longer before he nods and makes his way outside. Dean lets out a long, slow breath as he goes back to the den, bypassing the stack of books he still has to put away to slump on the couch. He is  _ exhausted _ . This is the most he’s had to deal with anyone in weeks, and for a minute he misses his empty house in Kansas. Part of him thinks he should’ve just stayed there and rotted from the inside out like his dad. It certainly would’ve involved less talking to people.

But still there’s the little part that worries about Sam, that missed Bobby, that saw Castiel’s truck on the side of the road and decided to help. That part gives him just enough energy to finish putting away the displaced books, to offer to make dinner when Bobby comes back in, and to appreciate that Bobby declines the offer on the grounds of leftovers in the fridge. If he ignores the angel in the backyard, the fact that his brother is still a thousand miles away, and his dad being dead, it’s just like old times.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> catch me on tumblr @ [winkingwinchesters](winkingwinchesters.tumblr.com)


	4. insomnia

Dean can’t sleep. He’s no stranger to insomnia, but he can’t help blaming his nearly 12 hours of sleep spurred by whatever Castiel did. He gives up around 3 AM, tossing the book he’d been skimming onto the coffee table and heading outside with the vain hope that fresh air will make him tired. He finds Castiel at the edge of the yard, sitting on the hood of a car with his head bowed.

“Mind if I join you?” he asks. Castiel looks up, shifts until there’s room for Dean, and gestures to the empty space. Dean sits, leaning back on his hands. Castiel keeps his head up but returns to his hunch, elbows on his knees. “You’re not banned from the house.”

“I know,” Castiel says. “I find that the outdoors help me think.”

Dean nod. He looks out over the yard, the familiarity a comfort. Coming to Bobby’s helps him think, even if right now he’d rather not. He glances at Castiel, staring at the ground. “Must be some important thinking.”

Castiel looks at him for a moment and then sits up. “I was thinking about my sister.”

“You have a sister?” Dean says. He wishes it was brighter so he could see the expression that comes along with Castiel’s quiet huff.

“I have a multitude of siblings,” he says.

“So why this sister then?”

Castiel mirrors Dean’s position. “I was wondering if perhaps she was right.”

“About?”

Castiel doesn’t answer him, head tilted back to look at the sky. Dean looks up, too. It’s too cloudy for stars; the moonlight barely pushes through. He thinks about the book he’d been flipping through and the line Bobby had marked.

Dean looks at Castiel. “If I ask you a question about angels, are you going to answer it?” 

Castiel shrugs.

“Bobby’s got this book that called you all warriors of God,” Dean says. “So what are you doing down here,  _ watching over _ someone like me?”

Castiel turns his head, gaze falling heavy on Dean. “You’re a good person, Dean.”

“That’s not what I asked,” Dean says, forcing himself not to look away. “If you are supposed to be warriors, why would there be angels just hanging out on earth?”

Castiel breaks their staring match first. “There are many purposes that serve God,” he says after a minute. “Not all of them involve celestial battles.”

“But there are celestial battles,” Dean says.

“There is always something to fight,” Castiel says. It hangs in the air for a moment, Dean not quite sure what he could say to that, until Castiel glances at him. “Shouldn’t you be resting?”

“Not tired,” Dean says, which is half true. He’s tired in the general this has been a very long day and I am ready for it to end way, but when it comes to sleeping tired, there’s still nothing to be found. He looks around the yard again, suddenly restless as he sits forward. “Do you wanna go somewhere?”

“Where?” Castiel asks. 

“I don’t know, somewhere. Anywhere.”

“Anywhere,” Castiel echoes, skeptical.

And that’s how Dean winds up driving around South Dakota with an angel in the middle of the night. The roads of Sioux Falls are second-nature for him. He used to drive around with Sam when neither of them could sleep or they were sick of Bobby’s house and their Dad hadn’t come back for them yet. Sometimes Sam just slept better in a moving car, back before he became a giant. 

He goes east, toward Ellis, taking the long way through town. Castiel is quiet until they pass under I-29, when he turns away from the window to face forward.

“I’ve never been to South Dakota,” he says. 

“Well,” Dean says, “there’s lots of rocks. National parks. You can drive past Mount Rushmore.”

Castiel frowns at him. “Past what?”

“Mount Rushmore,” Dean repeats, looking over for longer than would be deemed  _ safe _ .  Castiel continues to frown. “Presidents’ faces TNT-ed into a mountain?”

“I see,” Castiel says, turning his frown back to the windshield. Dean opens his mouth to press the issue and then decides to let it drop. What does it matter if Castiel has never heard of some weird monument?

“So where have you been?” he asks instead.

“I landed in Illinois,” Castiel says. “From there, I crossed Iowa to Nebraska and then decided to go north.”

“Why didn’t you just stay in Illinois?”

“It wasn’t where I was meant to be,” Castiel says, glancing over like he doesn’t fully mean to. Dean ignores the flip of his stomach and just keeps driving. 


	5. nocturnal

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> rating has been upped to teen for references to alcohol dependence & depression

Dean feels himself starting to go nocturnal over the next week. He doesn’t mind, really, except that he knows he’s getting in Bobby’s way every time he crashes in the middle of the day. It gives him a good excuse to not talk very much. Whatever desire he’d had to regain human contact when he came up has already died. He waits until Bobby gets up to work on Castiel’s truck, sitting forgotten for a few days until Dean desperately needs something to do. While he digs around the seriously fucked up engine block, he ignores Castiel sitting in the workshop, even when he’s asked a direct question. Castiel grows tired of his silence after two days and disappears somewhere. Dean doesn’t care. He’s glad to be alone.

Once the truck makes him angry enough, he slams the hood shut and goes inside to drink until he falls asleep, sometimes on the couch, sometimes at the table in the kitchen. More than once he wakes up with Castiel looming over him, undeterred by Dean’s mumbled  _ fuck offs _ . Once Castiel pushed a bag of chips toward him and Dean realized he’d forgotten to eat again. At night he watches hours upon hours of old TV. Not much is different than how he was before he left Kansas; now he’s just got Bobby and a guardian angel subtly nagging him to take care of himself.

He hates it.

 

Dean doesn’t see Castiel in his cursory glance around the yard so he grabs his keys and leaves Bobby’s at half past midnight. He doesn’t have a destination in mind at first, but he’s been thinking about leaving town all night and to do that, he needs money. He adjusts his course to his favorite Sioux Falls dive bar, psyching himself up to hustle some pool.

 

Castiel looks distinctly unimpressed when Dean gets back to Bobby’s with a split lip and a pocketful of cash. His target was a sore loser, going for brute force when his pool skills weren’t sharp enough. Unfortunately for him, Dean has been picking fights all his life. Dean is sober, but the fight wound him up, and he meets Castiel’s gaze with raised eyebrows.

“What,” he snaps. Castiel narrows his eyes. And then he walks away. Dean ignores the sinking feeling in his chest.

 

His dad died from drinking too much. Hepatic encephalopathy caused by cirrhosis of the liver, technically. It’s in the back of his mind every time he reaches for a beer, whiskey, vodka if he really wants to get drunk. He drinks anyway. May as well live up to his legacy. 


End file.
